The Triumph of Partisanship

Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. credit status from AAA to AA+ only reinforces the obvious: we are a nation drowning in debt. The recent debt limit deal did nothing really significant to reduce the spiraling federal debt. What was needed was at least a $4 trillion dollar cut in the debt, but neither Democrats nor Republicans would "bite the bullet" and enact measures that would adversely affect their constituencies. In short partisanship won out. The USA remains politically balkanized. In a way, we are a victim of our own peculiar form of democracy with its strong divisions of power and checks and balances, which allows separate political parties to dominate each of the three legs of our government and in effect hold each other hostage, as we have now with the Republicans in control of the House and the Democrats in control of the Presidency and a slim majority control of the Senate. In some respects, if the USA were on a parliamentary system like the U.K., political and policy changes could happen more quickly. But that is neither here nor there. We must live with our system as designed, which means it puts the onus on our President and Congressional Representatives to rise above their partisan positions and do what is best for this country.

This requires statesmanship over partisanship. It remains to be seen if we can turn the decline of our country around through statesmanship, or whether we will continue to decline into feuding partisan factions.